Principal Software Engineer - Search Algorithms - Elasticsearch

Elastic
United States
Full timeUSD 159,800 - 252,800 annuallyFunction: Software EngineeringSkills: ["Communication","Collaboration","Autonomy","Ownership","Problem-solving"]

Lead industry-leading vector search initiatives for Elasticsearch, enhancing vector similarity functionality and building new vector database capabilities. Contribute to feature development, bug fixing, and making the codebase easier to understand, including inventing algorithms/data structures and working close to OS and hardware when needed. Collaborate with a globally distributed team and open-source community on search relevance and vector similarity, owning outcomes from design through delivery.

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FursaFursa
Elastic
Elastic
2 days ago

Principal Software Engineer - Search Algorithms - Elasticsearch

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Source: Company careers pageValidated by: Fursa AI
Last checked: 5 hours agoStatus: Live

Job Summary

Lead industry-leading vector search initiatives for Elasticsearch, enhancing vector similarity functionality and building new vector database capabilities. Contribute to feature development, bug fixing, and making the codebase easier to understand, including inventing algorithms/data structures and working close to OS and hardware when needed. Collaborate with a globally distributed team and open-source community on search relevance and vector similarity, owning outcomes from design through delivery.
Location: United States
Employment Type: Full time
Job Function: Software Engineering
Seniority: Mid level

Key Responsibilities

  • •Lead initiatives within Elasticsearch to produce an industry-leading vector database offering focused on speed and relevance in search.
  • •Build new vector search features and enhance existing vector similarity functionality, resolving bugs and improving code understandability.
  • •Work with globally distributed engineers on Elasticsearch vector search capabilities and share expertise to answer team questions in this area.
  • •Collaborate with community members on issues and pull requests, sometimes triaging and sometimes handling items directly.
  • •Write idiomatic modern Java and contribute across designs and implementations of algorithms/data structures, including where needed close to OS and hardware.

Pay and Benefits

Salary: USD 159,800 - 252,800 annually
Equity and Bonus:Equity
Perks:Health Insurance401kEquityParental LeavePaid LeaveVolunteer Time

Key Requirements

  • •Professional experience with vector similarity and vector databases, including HNSW, IVF, or other relevant algorithms and libraries on large-scale search platforms.
  • •Strong core Java skills and familiarity with data structures, concurrency constructs, and lambdas.
  • •Experience with vector similarity in support of search relevance, with a proven track record of improving complex systems and optimizing code.
  • •Autonomy to take projects end-to-end, including technical design and partnering with other engineers to develop components.
  • •Experience working with data storage technologies such as Elasticsearch, Solr, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Cassandra.
Experience:Vector databasesAISearch platformsOpen sourceDistributed teams
Skills:CommunicationCollaborationAutonomyOwnershipProblem-solving
Tech Stack:JavaElasticsearchLuceneVector similarityHNSWIVFSolrPostgreSQLMongoDBCassandraLambdasGitHubZoomSlack

Company Brief

Elastic
Builds the Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, Logstash) and provides search, observability, and security solutions that enable organizations to search, analyze, and protect data in real time across applications, infrastructure, and enterprises.
Industry: Data Infrastructure
Company Size: Enterprise (1,001+ employees)
Revenue: USD 1B+
Growth: Public Company
Valuation: Public Company (Market Cap in USD)
Funding: IPO / Publicly Listed
Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Founded: 2012
WebsiteLinkedIn